


The First Encounter

by whentheynameyoujoy



Series: The Lies They Tell [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Abandonment, Anger, Angst, Bigotry & Prejudice, Catharsis, Christmas Eve, Depression, Emotional Constipation, Emotional Hurt, Enemies to Friends, Explicit Language, F/M, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Torture, Making Up, Not Canon Compliant - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Pre-Relationship, Resentment, Second War with Voldemort, Sharing, Spy Draco Malfoy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-07
Updated: 2018-01-07
Packaged: 2019-03-01 15:07:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13297455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whentheynameyoujoy/pseuds/whentheynameyoujoy
Summary: Although there was some competition, Draco Malfoy felt confident in saying this was by far the crappiest Christmas he'd ever been through.





	1. Chapter 1

Taking a look around the half-crumbled derelict house they’d been holed up in for the past thirty minutes, Draco remarked: “You know, Granger, I’ve always dreamt about freezing my bollocks off on Christmas Eve in a shithole so bleak even hobos avoid it. Figured it would give the whole winter holiday experience the right panache.” Clapping his gloved hands to relieve the numbness in his fingers, he added: “That being said, if the one-eyed wonder doesn’t get his arse over here within the next hour or so, I’m leaving. Some of us do have a cover to maintain.”

Crouched next to him, Granger continued to stare blankly at the opposite wall, not deeming him worthy of a response. Any other night, that would have been fine by him. If the bint never said another word till the day she kicked the bucket, it would still be way too soon in his eyes. But this was not any other night.

Desperate to find something that would keep him occupied, Draco glanced around for the umpteenth time, making use of every bit of the pale weak light cast by the wand that lied between them. It truly was an incredible dump. There was no glass in the windows, only a few pieces of old torn tarp flapping violently under the gusts of the snow storm raging outside. The mouldy walls covered with graffiti were shedding plaster, creating uneven maps and images that nonetheless formed nothing of interest.  The large hole in the ceiling revealed an equally unimpressive upstairs room and exposed beams of the leaky roof. Every inch of the place breathed chill, the bare floorboards creaked whenever one of them shifted their weight, the sound of which echoed throughout the entire house, and Draco was fairly certain somebody had recently taken a shit in the opposite corner.

Sighing, he shook his head. “This really is shaping up to be a nice evening full of holiday cheer, isn’t it?”

“Sod off,” came the impassive reply.

Raising an eyebrow, Draco observed: “Very witty, Granger. Is this the famed Muggle Christmas spirit I’ve heard so little about?”

“See my previous statement.” There was no verve in it, as if she said it more out of obligation than a genuine desire to start an argument. To be honest, Draco didn’t care for a sniping fest either. It required more energy than he felt like expending, and besides, he’d taken to showing his simmering anger at Granger by stealing her party trick and leaving her company as quickly as could be feasibly managed. Sadly, their unacknowledged month-long contest in who could piss off from a meeting sooner and with fewer terse words exchanged had been unexpectedly cancelled tonight when Moody failed to arrive at the appointment he himself had made, forcing the two of them to suck it up, pitch camp against the least crappy looking wall, and wait for him.

So there they were, shivering like crazy in the armpit of Britain and getting cramps in their arses on Christmas bloody Eve. With nothing to busy his mind and stuck for Merlin knew how long with a girl who was currently his least favourite person in the universe, Draco couldn’t help but be bored out of his skull.

Turning his head to inspect Granger for the first time since they came, he said: “Not to imply it has ever been different, but you really do look like hell tonight. Finally realized Weasley will be grateful for anything so why make the effort, eh?”

It was only partially a dig; one had to simply glance at her to see that this was not someone who’d had it easy lately. Her face was blotchy and pallid, with large puffy bags under her eyes as if she’d exchanged sleep for long periods of regular crying. She’d tortured her hair in two tousled braids to make the ridiculous red woollen hat with ear flaps stay on, creating the effect of a very depressed gnome. The worst part were her eyes, though. Draco had gotten used to Granger sneering at him as if she were playing the part of Snape during a Potions lesson to Hufflepuffs, but the thousand-yard stare she’d worn for the past half an hour, boring it into the exact same spot unflinchingly, went a long way to genuinely unsettle him.

Overall, she gave off the impression of a drowning rat who lost the will to fight its impending doom.

“Can’t say I blame you, although I wish I wasn’t the one who had to witness it. But hey, if you ever need to blend in with a bunch of squatters willing to sell their kids for a drop of Euphoria Elixir, we now know that you have the look down perfectly.”

At last, Granger threw her head back and gave out a tormented groan. “Oh God, Malfoy, do you ever shut up?”

 _Finally, some engagement._ “It’s called conversation, Granger. I understand it may seem foreign to you after living with Potter and Weasley for eighteen months straight, but do keep up.” He glanced at his wristwatch. “Besides, it’s not like I take any pleasure in trying to chat you up. It’s just that I have precisely fifty-four minutes and thirty seconds to kill before I have to…”

“Yes, yes, you need to get back, you said that already. There’s a quota of kneeling to be fulfilled, the propaganda movie night to attend, and the boots aren’t going to lick themselves.” Granger laughed mirthlessly. “And let’s not even talk about setting up the Christmas tree. I’m sure it must be the most wonderfully revolting thing this world has ever seen.” She gave him a conspiratorial look and nudged his shoulder. “Tell me, Malfoy, will the dead bodies of innocent Muggle-born children be wrapped _under_ it as presents, or are they a part of the decorations?”

“Funny you should mention it, Granger. I was just about to ask what’s the Christmas dinner like at your place this year. Did you manage to scramble a few pieces of sawdust bread, or does the Order ration out a festive stew made from the corpses of enemy child soldiers? Must be great, having a steady source of meat at your disposal like this. No wonder Weasley’s mum is so fat.”

“Nah, we tried that already and the results were less than satisfactory. Turns out, blood supremacists don’t make for very tasty food. They aren’t good for anything, really, other than being left to rot away.”

“Wow. Ladies and gentlemen, I’m pleased to inform you that the _Nimbus: Granger_ line can go from zero to cunt in less than two seconds. Not sure why anyone would bother creating it, but if you too enjoy the delightful feeling of being propelled around by a stick wedged deep inside your arsehole, this model will give you the full range of the experience.”

“Yes, being made to spend more than two minutes in the presence of a pestilent bigot who won’t keep his trap shut will do that to a person.” She pulled a face of faux incredulity and threw her hands up. “Who would have thought?”

Draco scoffed. “Granger, you have hardly anything to complain about when it comes to my charming company. I’m not the one who made this partnership less pleasant than having one’s teeth extracted by a pair of kick-happy Centaurs.”

Looking away from him, Granger slid down the wall and sat on the cold dirty floor, gingerly stretching her legs. Draco’s thighs very cramping up as well, but he still hadn’t reached the stage where he would be willing to compromise the cleanliness of his trousers. “Please, Malfoy, you do not want to compare scores,” she said, the tiredness seeping back into her voice. “Trust me, you wouldn’t come off well.”

Draco glanced to his left and grinned at the red knit cap by his shoulder. “Actually you know what, Granger? I think I do want to compare them.” An honest to God opportunity to vent his grievances without having to be diplomatic about it? It truly was Christmas. “Let me begin since you naturally seem to be lacking relevant examples. Number one: out of the two of us, which one approached the other with a legitimate offer to talk things out, in fact has done so several times, yet was repeatedly refused?”

Granger snorted. “Legitimate offer to talk things out? You mean that person who had behaved like the most morally reprehensible scum on Earth for years but came crawling out of nowhere when being the most morally reprehensible scum on Earth stopped seeming like a sure-fire way to keep their privileges? Are we talking about the person who expected to be treated like God’s gift to humanity upon arrival?” She shrugged. “No, that certainly wasn’t me.”

He raised his eyebrows. “While that person may not have been God’s gift to humanity, they definitely were a gift to the failing guerrilla organization who’s experienced an unprecedented success rate thanks to them, yet didn’t hesitate to put them into a situation where they might have very well been killed.”

Giving herself a pretend slap on the forehead, Granger exclaimed: “Oh, I get it, you’re talking about the organization that promised to grant this person a full pardon for all the disgusting crimes they had committed and were still going to commit!” She gave an exaggerated, eager nod. “Yes, I can see how said organization was so very, very unfair to the poor little brat who has yet to show some bloody gratitude for being accepted at all.”

“That ‘poor little brat’, as you called him, doesn’t have anything to be grateful for, considering the fact that he’s been undergoing grave danger to his person in order to provide said bunch of inept knob heads with crucial information they’d otherwise wouldn’t be able to touch with the tip of their laughably tiny knob.”

Granger puckered her lips and lifted her finger in a gesture that reminded Draco so much of a spinster librarian he almost burst out laughing. “Sorry, but that ‘bunch of inept knob heads’ has no need to inflate the size of their knob by exaggerating the importance of its contributions, unlike some people I might mention who go on about how much danger they’re in, even though the one thing they always take a great care to do is ensuring their own safety.”

Offended, Draco puffed up. “Excuse me, but I don’t see how _you_ put yourself on the line by being shuffled away to a secret Order mission that apparently leaves you with ‘lots of free time’,” he quoted in a high-pitched voice, making air quotes violently.

She threw her hands up in exasperation. “Oh I don’t know, maybe you wouldn’t be on the line if you hadn’t decided to become a Death Eater, ever thought about that?”

That was too much for him. Plonking himself down onto the floor next to her, Draco sneered: “Right, I forgot completely! Obviously when the most unhinged wizard on the planet takes your family hostage and asks you to join his merry band of genocidal murderers as a belated birthday gift, what you’re supposed to do is go: ‘I’m sorry sir, but I’d much rather have some new robes if it’s all the same to you!’”

She turned sharply towards him and yelled: “ _I_ wasn’t the one who tortured _you_!”

He scrunched up his nose in distaste. “Seriously? Are we in some alternate reality where I woke up one day and decided to rip my own face off?”

Granger leaned closer, eyes blazing with fury, and hissed what she clearly considered to be the coup de grace: “You made me an accomplice to murder.”

Scoffing derisively, Draco turned away. “Granger, I realize you’re getting desperate, but you’d sooner pin stealing Christmas and murdering baby Jesus on me. As far as I’m aware, I didn’t exactly write you a well-argued letter asking you to kill Crabbe – which you actually did, so I don’t see how I made you an ‘accomplice’ to anything.”

Heavy silence set in, interrupted only by the wailing of the storm, and for a moment Draco was convinced he’d won.

“I wasn’t talking about Crabbe.”

She’d spoken only in whisper, but the sound of her words seemed to reverberate throughout the house, drowning the raging gusts as if they were nothing. Draco’s head snapped back to face her, and as he took in her wide open eyes, the bloodless skin, the strained expression of barely concealed agony, he realized there was nothing he could counter her accusation with.

They stared at each other for an eternity and then a little while longer before Granger opened her mouth again. “I never told Harry, you know?” she breathed out so quietly Draco struggled to hear. “Not then, not after, not ever. How could I? He still hasn’t forgiven me for not telling him about what your message truly meant and letting him get wrapped up in theories I knew were wrong, and this… I…” Her breath hitched and she swallowed. “I can’t. He _loved_ Dumbledore. I never really understood until it was too late but Dumbledore was like family to him.” Her eyes hardened. “And I helped you get him murdered.”

Granger slowly pulled away from him and fixed her gaze on the floor, arms hanging limply by her sides. “Harry’s off on a mission of his own tonight,” she continued softly. “I asked him where he was going or what he wanted to do there, even begged him to let me tag along, but he just gave me the same angry glare he’s been giving me for the past several months and said not to worry, he can ‘handle this by himself’.” She paused shortly and shook her head. “I don’t think you realize what you destroyed, Malfoy. And I don’t think you care.”

The flatness of her tone sent chills down his spine. For the past year and a half, Draco had spent a lot of time thinking about the events that transpired at the top of the Astronomy Tower; about how he couldn’t have done anything to prevent them; how he could have done so many things to prevent them; how he’d been only following the path chosen for him, and since he didn’t have the option to stray, he did nothing wrong by not straying; how better his current situation could have been if he’d only gritted his teeth and gotten the sodding job done.

Not once did it occur to him that when it came to the damage his actions caused to Granger, it might extend further than to her personal feelings of betrayal.

Draco opened his mouth to speak, not having the faintest what he was going to say, knowing only that he needed to say _something_. “Granger, I…”

“Why me, Malfoy?” she looked up, and seeing her large eyes again, Draco was overcome with a sense of anxious anticipation, as if he was staring at a huge dam ready to burst. “Out of all the people you could have approached, all the goons and You-Know-Who sympathizers who would have happily given their leg to assist you, why did you have to put this on me?”

“I…” Back when Draco had been convinced that a question like this was going to be asked sooner or later, he’d rehearsed a little speech to deliver, full of convenient evasions and soothing half-truths. But now, confronted with the thinly veiled maelstrom of emotions raving beneath her expression, it was as if he’d forgotten every single word. “I was scared out of my wits by the end, Granger, not thinking clearly. All I could think about at that point was that I desperately needed help.”

_And despite the fact that you were someone I’d only recently started to tolerate, although nowhere near enough to make me question whether my and my mother’s life were more important than what you wanted or didn’t want to do, when it came right down to it, you were the only one who sprung to mind._

“It’s not like I didn’t feel at all bad about it. And I did care enough to warn you to get out of the way when it mattered, didn’t I?” It sounded like a horrendous attempt at consolation even to his own ears, and so he hastily added, without really thinking it through: “I may have manipulated you, but if someone spends a good part of the school year hounding you about your shitty mental state, asking you how you’re doing even after you told them numerous times to piss off, that you don’t need their help although you quite obviously do, you…” he trailed off, not certain whether he couldn’t finish the sentence or simply didn’t want to.

_You grow to care about them a bit._

A snigger escaped her before the mask of abject misery set back in. “Yes, you were quite the guardian angel.” After a few seconds of pondering it, she went on: “You know, this actually makes it so much harder to handle. It would be one thing if you blackmailed me into it without giving a damn, or if I was under the influence of the Imperius curse. But agreeing to help you out of my free will?” She shook her head despondently. “That makes me responsible.”

Draco wrinkled his forehead. Hermione Granger not making any sense was not something he was very much used to. “Granger, you didn’t _agree_ to anything. I lied to you, remember?”

She gave a stiff shrug. “Doesn’t matter. The result is the same: Draco Malfoy needs help, Hermione Granger provides it, and boom – Albus Dumbledore dies. You wouldn’t have fixed the vanishing cabinet without me, and if you wouldn’t have fixed it, Death Eaters would never have gotten into Hogwarts and Snape would have never murdered Dumbledore.” She laughed unhappily, as if passing on a bad joke she was contractually obliged to share. “I’m as guilty as you are, and neither of us physically cast the curse. How do you like that?”

Before Draco could decide whether what he’d just heard was heartbreakingly sad, crushingly horrifying, or bafflingly idiotic, Granger’s upper lip curled in an expression of loathing, and she looked up towards the ceiling, waving her arm. “And to think I was actually angry at Harry when he convinced himself that you were involved in something bad! I even defended you, like the imbecile I am, called him obsessive and delusional. And what would you know? Turns out he was the one who had it right the whole time while the supposed brightest witch of her age was in fact the worst judge of character on earth!”

Draco threw his hands up in confusion. “But why didn’t you listen?” he exclaimed, deep down welcoming the change of direction since asking uncomfortable questions had always come more easily to him than answering them. “That’s what I never understood! You obviously had Potter telling you there was something off, we weren’t friends, you had no reason or obligation to go out of your way to be glued to a chair in the library, doing my work for me! So why did you?”

Her head snapped back to him as if he’d implied her three-feet long essay on the magical properties of number seven was subpar and poorly argued. “I thought you were suicidal, you goddamned moron!” Granger snarled, leaning closer to him in her renewed fury. She raised her hand and Draco was reminded of her little violent outburst in their third year, believing for a moment that he was in for a repeat. But then he noticed she only lifted a finger to begin counting up. “Let’s run it down, shall we? One, you stopped breathing down my neck and trying to steal my position as the top student from me. Two, you gave up your place in the Slytherin Quidditch team. Three, you no longer bothered Ron, Harry, and me with your constant barrage of infantile abuse. In fact, you began shunning your revolting little friends, too, in order to sit around alone and stare at nothing like some soulless freak waiting for reanimation.” As she was gaining momentum, Draco couldn’t help but notice that her volume was rising. “Sod it, you even started cutting classes! And what was the one thing that happened in our fifth year that would explain all of this strange behaviour? Your father was thrown into Azkaban, and you’d never shut up about how great the bastard is.” She took a deep breath and yelled so loudly Draco’s ears began ringing: “So excuse me if I believed that you having a major depression and needing someone was vastly more likely than you being stupid enough to become You-Know-Who’s puppet and plot Dumbledore’s murder!”

Granger slowly leaned back against the wall, not taking her eyes off him as if she wanted to drill the point into his skull just by looking at him. “But hey!” she exclaimed, shrugging her shoulders with unnatural nonchalance. “If nothing else, when things get gloomy now and then in your camp, you can always cheer up your mates with the story about how you fooled this stupid little mudblood into believing you might not be a complete waste of space, eh? I bet it must be a hoot, improving your reputation with them because you got the muddie moron to care.” She bared her teeth in what Draco supposed was a smile of shared camaraderie. “Tell me, Malfoy, do you all sit in a nice circle, roast marshmallows, and have a good laugh when you talk about this?”

He wrinkled his forehead. “Granger, I never laughed at that.”

“Oh, so it’s highly intellectual debates about how your personal experience confirms the inferiority of Muggle-borns as a group?” She gestured wildly. “Do your buddies get all giddy when you say not to worry, us mudblood idiots can never defeat them?”

“Mudblood idi… Damn it, I don’t believe in those things anymore!” Draco felt his throat constrict with anger as he remembered why it was that he’d been so furious with Granger in the first place. He could handle being torn into for stuff that was legitimately his fault, but continuing to silently study the urine patterns etched in the opposite corner would have been much more preferable to having to deflect Granger’s sanctimonious and completely bullshit accusations.

“You don’t, Malfoy?” she said in a tone so surprised there was no way it wasn’t fake, and placed one hand on her chest dramatically. “Pray tell me, what changed?”

Draco crossed his arms. “Oh, now you want to know?”

“I asked, didn’t I?” she replied in a way that was too close to dismissive sneering for Draco not to take offence. “We’re going to sit here for the next forty minutes at least and I’d rather not think about how terribly cold I am, so oh, now I want to bloody know!”

“Well you had your chance to ask and I don’t feel like talking about it anymore!” Draco retorted and pushed his hands deeper into his armpits. He realized he sounded like a petulant child, but she was getting on his nerves and there was currently no person he felt less like speaking with, especially when it came to this.

“Oh, poor you, having to do something you’d rather not,” Granger whined and then waved her hand flippantly, as if she was dismissing a lowly servant. “I wager it’s something awfully pathetic anyway.”

That angered Draco so much he forgot all about disengaging. “Yeah, you would!” he yelled. “Jumping to conclusions as always. No surprise there!”

“Not sure whether it qualifies as jumping to conclusions when it’s so obvious,” she scoffed and rested her head in her hands, pretending to think about it. “I wonder: did you realize you’re not going to make your fortune by accepting the dark mark after all? Or does having to actually get off your butt and do stuff not sit well with you?” After umming and erring for a while, she sighed in mock defeat. “Can’t decide which, Malfoy, it really is a toss-up.”

He turned to her and growled, feeling his control slip away: “You have no idea what you’re talking about, Granger, and you couldn’t be more off if you tried, so why don’t you kindly shut the hell up and leave me alone?”

“Yeah, once it gets uncomfortable, suddenly all you wish for is some peace and quiet!”

“Exactly, thanks for understanding!”

“Understanding? So you say I got it right, then?”

“No, you didn’t get it right! That’s not what happened!”

“Then tell me, Malfoy!” Granger exclaimed and threw her hands up. “What was it that made you get off the ‘damn mudbloods’ train? Did a Muggle-born give you a kitten? Or was your damn prejudice finally outweighed by your need to have an in with both sides as the coward you are? What happened?”

And that was when Draco finally lost it. He leaned sharply in her, his vision blurred with fury, and roared, only half realizing he was doing it: _“SNAPE FORCED ME TO HANG AROUND YOU!”_

He would have enjoyed the look of shock on her face immensely, maybe even let her stew in her mistaken conclusions for a while, if he weren’t so livid. “Yes, Granger, your wonderfully enriching presence happened. And it truly was such a rewarding experience I had no idea how to contain myself,” Draco snarled, so close to her he could count the golden flecks in her brown irises. “Tell me, how hard do you think it is to notice that there are worse things in a person than them not being a pureblood? Character defects which have absolutely nothing to do with their blood status?” Parodying her previous histrionic gestures, he lifted his hand and started raising fingers one after the other. “Things like being a boring know-it-all swot, for example, or a disgusting hypocrite, or my absolute favourite, a horribly judgemental twat!”

Granger looked as if she was going to explode at any second – either that, or lift off towards the ceiling like a giant ball of puffed cheeks and indignation. Not intending to let her get a word in once he got rolling, Draco continued: “And let’s not even get into the whole pureblood superiority bit, because one just needs to take a glimpse at my school record to see what a load of hippogriff shit _that_ goodie is!” He waved his arm in irritation. “There I was at Hogwarts, busting my arse for years, gobbling up books like a deranged Puffskein, yet the only two subjects I ever managed to beat you in were flying and Potions. What a fucking achievement.” Before she could start babbling about Snape to obscure the fact Draco really was at least as good behind the cauldron as she, he elaborated: “One, we both know that even Longbottom can outfly you in his sleep, and two, we actually made a pretty well-balanced team in Potions whenever you forced yourself to shut up and work with me, rare as those instances may have been. Add it all up, and the idea that Muggle-borns are somehow bad by virtue of being Muggle-borns, not by virtue of being shitty, bothersome twits just like everyone else… well, that idea suddenly starts requiring much more mental energy to sustain itself than I have ever been inclined to spend on you.”

He leaned against the wall and exhaled, feeling strangely free and unburdened. Phew! People had been right. Getting things off one’s chest truly did give one a sense of relief.

Granger didn’t seem to share his elation, though. “I understand you need to compensate your sense of intellectual inferiority by calling me a know-it-all swot, Malfoy,” she huffed conceitedly, “but a judgemental hypocrite? Did you forget you’re not talking to one of your Slytherin chums?”

It was amazing how she could ruin his mood simply by opening her gob. “You’re the most judgemental person I’ve ever met!” he shouted, annoyed by the very notion that she would claim otherwise. “You make assumptions about me and my motives without ever bothering to find out what they are, and chew me out for stuff you have no idea I even did! And better yet, you act on those stupid assumptions!” Jabbing a finger at her, he hissed: “Don’t think I forgot that it was you acting like a bitch for no discernible reason that got me believing you were out to kill me and almost _did_ get me killed!” Granger took a sharp breath, clearly getting ready to cut him off, but Draco pushed on: “And it would be one thing if you applied this ridiculous behaviour of yours across the board, but it seems to me that when it comes to your precious friends, you mysteriously become a lot more flexible and amenable, even though if I were to pull the exact same shit as they do you’d tear me a new arsehole – which, I believe, nicely covers the hypocrite part I mentioned earlier.”

Going by Granger’s stunned expression, he successfully managed to paint her into a corner. “Don’t forget the part where I, a filthy mudblood, stole someone’s magic to pass myself off as a witch in the first place,” she retorted with her nose in the air, obviously scrambling for anything that wasn’t an inane non-sequitur to say. “What a nuanced way of thinking right there.”

Draco snorted, not in the mood to generously allow her this feeble attempt at saving face. “Does it make you feel good when you throw that word at me? Because if you expect me to blush and stutter out apologies, you’re in for a big disappointment.” Casting her a meaningful look to let her know she was shit out of luck, he turned away. “That children’s story was so clearly concocted by a boozed up sphinx even Crabbe had a hard time wrapping his head around it. I mean, how would a baby go about stealing someone’s magic? Does it fling dirty diapers around until a wizard gets hit and loses his magic out of sheer revulsion?” Reclining back to rest his head against the cold wall, he glanced up towards the holey roof. “Honestly, what was the ministry thinking?”

A surprisingly comfortable silence set in. The howling of the storm seemed to have quieted somewhat, Granger returned to her previous non-talking self, and with one major part of his complaints now out in the open, there was no longer any need for Draco to try and engage her in conversation. He had to remind himself that it wouldn’t be wise to draw anyone’s attention to them by lighting a fire, but if he ignored the arse-freezing chill seeping through his trousers and making him doubt he’d be able to ever get up again, he could almost pretend this wasn’t the worst Christmas in his life.

And then of course Granger had to go and fuck it up.


	2. Chapter 2

Slapping her thighs in a determined gesture of acknowledgement that the conversation was over, Granger exclaimed cheerfully: “Well, hasn’t this been underwhelming? I mean, Draco Malfoy joining the good guys because he finally figured out Muggle-borns are people like everybody else, something any person with a modicum of brainpower and decency realized simply by thinking for a minute or two?” Clicking her tongue, she made a big show of yawning and stretching her arms. “I’m certainly going to ask Molly to bake you a cookie the next time I see her since you turned out to be such a perceptive little boy.”

Draco reminded himself that it would be very harmful to the future of his “alive” status if he went for it and murdered her on the fucking spot. Instead, he fixed her with a glare he hoped was sharp enough to cut even through the ridiculous mass of bright red wool she called a cap. “You know Granger, if you were correct about any of this your head would be stuck in the nearest toilet right about now.” Her look of disbelief was nothing if not priceless. “Seriously, you spend years bitching about how someone makes your life miserable because of your pedigree, and yet when you come to the mistaken conclusion that said person is now on your side because they changed their mind about what it is that makes you so impossible to stand, your first reaction is to mock them.” Draco snorted in disgust. “You truly are a piece of work, aren’t you?”

It was comical how her mouth opened and then closed and then opened again as if it was attached to a particularly bewildered fish. “You just said you don’t believe in pureblood supremacy anymore!”

He shrugged. “I don’t. Doesn’t mean it’s my reason for working with the Order, or that I’m biting my nails in anguish at the thought of you sleeping under a bridge because you didn’t share my good sense in being born to right parents.”

Granger gawked at him as if he grew a second head. “So that’s it, is it?” she snapped bitterly, catching Draco off guard. “You’re telling me you really did become a spy to save your own skin in case You-Know-Who loses? You really are in this just for yourself?”

Not in the mood to lay his emotions out there and open a second can of worms so soon after the first one, Draco decided to simply poke holes in her logic as this strategy never failed to derail her. “I’m here and help the Order defeat him, am I not?” he accused in an attempt to turn the tables back at her. “Or can I look forward to waking up from this nightmare where I risk my life every single day and the only thing I have to show for it is the brain tumour I’m going to get from listening to Her Highness complain how the way I’m helping isn’t noble enough?” He gave her a serious look, willing her to help him understand. “Honestly, Granger, what would you have me do that would be in line with your idea of the impeccable defector? What great feat of self-sacrificial heroics would Hermione fucking Granger have me do?”

“ _LEAVE_!” she roared, pulling him up as short as his earlier words had her. “I would expect you to leave, to remove yourself from this situation entirely by crawling into a hole and waiting the whole war out somewhere in in the middle of Siberia! I would have you do that because that would be perfectly in character for you!” He tried to cut in, but she was in full lecture mode now and Draco could only hope he’d get a word in edgewise sometime this century. “And don’t try to feed me any line about how You-Know-Who would definitely have you hunted down and sniffed out no matter where you hid, because I heard your little talk with Crabbe and know full well that he has bigger fish to fry. You-Know-Who wouldn’t bother with someone who has to constantly convince him of his usefulness, at least not until Death Eaters win the war – which is far less given than you getting found out and killed for spying. And he will kill you if he finds out, yet that’s exactly what you decided to risk even though there’s nothing holding you here and you claim to have no dog in this fight! So what else do you expect me to think than that you’re cynically playing both sides and waiting to see who comes out on top?”

“I never claimed to have no dog in this fight,” Draco defended himself. “Why else would I and my beautiful lodge in Siberia part ways?” He was getting dangerously close to the truth, but there was no way he was going to let Granger get away with piling her unfair bullcrap on him any longer. “But having a dog in this particular fight doesn’t automatically mean said dog is you and people like you!”

“Me and people like me had their lives turned upside down by this war!” Granger screamed, closing her eyes shut in fury.

“ _I_ had my life turned upside down by this war but you don’t see me asking others to lay theirs down for me, do you?” Draco countered angrily, not believing the gall of her to actually put herself so front and centre. She shot him a look of utter contempt but he pressed on: “And there it is, that fucking _I have this all figured out_ expression you keep throwing me whenever you convinced yourself that you have me pegged. Forget the fact that you still don’t know _why_ I defected or that until a few minutes ago you didn’t know whether or not I actually believe all that mudblood crap any longer. But Merlin, it was convenient for you to think that I do, so that’s what you’d merrily go on thinking if I hadn’t corrected you, the truth be damned, right?”

Granger raised her hands in pretend apology and barked out, her voice dripping self-righteousness: “Oh Malfoy, I’m so sorry for failing to recognize that when it comes to your opinion on whether a group of people deserves to be wiped out or not, your active support turned into a firmly-held _meh_! How horribly unkind of me!” She shook her head in disbelief. “You sure expect a lot of benefit of the doubt for someone who essentially stopped being a bigot because they got bored of it.”

“One, I never said I don’t care about Muggle-borns getting wiped out!” Draco gestured angrily. “And bugger me, so I realized I was wrong about my old beliefs because continuing to hold onto them would have required a lot more effort than the alternative. So what? What have I ever done to make you delude yourself that I behave according to some lofty personal convictions of mine?”

“Well, we’ve already established that you don’t do right things for right reasons, but you did seem pretty convinced whenever you called me…” Granger put a finger on her lips, pretending to be immersed in thought. “Oh I know, let’s see: a filthy mudblood. Or a stinking mudblood. Or to spice things up with a little bit of creativity, a slimy mudblood.” She tilted her head and gave him a side eye. “And let me tell you, watching you get a stiffy every time a Muggle-born was attacked by the Basilisk was positively disturbing.”

“I was twelve, you bint,” Draco growled, leaning closer. He realized he was doing that a lot tonight, but rationalized it by the reasonable success rate this move had when it came to shutting Granger up. “Are you really so stupid to think that a twelve-year old spouts bigotry because they’ve painstakingly went through the issue at some academic symposium and decided that gee golly, this is what makes the most sense to me intellectually?” He found it unbelievable that she needed to have something this simple explained. “I called you a mudblood because that’s what I was taught, because I didn’t like you, and because that’s what wound up your idiotic friends the most. Why would I question the validity of what I was saying if it produced results I liked?”

“This is your defence?” she cried out incredulously. “That you never thought about what you were doing because you were a mean little bully?”

“Yeah, Granger, that about covers it,” he remarked in his best I’m-speaking-to-a-bloody-child tone, and rubbed his legs to get a little bit warmer. “Do you honestly believe that people have some overly worded manifesto inside their brain, complete with arguments and counter-arguments, or that sticking to it out of principle is the main reason they ever do anything?”

“But now you have clearly thought about this, no matter how little!” Granger implored. “And yet all you do when confronted with the real effects of the bigotry you spouted is to shrug and move on like it’s no big deal?”

“What would you like me to do that I’m not already doing?” Draco asked, getting irritated. “I want the Dark Lord gone and defeated, and if he is defeated, you get your Muggle-born paradise by default. Everybody wins.” He waved his arm. “And it’s not like I’ll go on spreading his troll dung of an ideology after the war is over, or that I can’t wait till I’ll be handing out propaganda flyers at Diagon Alley, am I, so why is it so bad if the degree to which I personally want to stick my neck out for Muggle-born rights stops at _not bloody much_?”

And that was clearly the last drop for her, because the next thing Draco knew, Granger jumped on her knees, shuffled in front of him so he’d be forced to face her constantly now, and pleaded with so much urgency in her voice it took him aback: “Because that makes it even worse if you see how wrong this ideology is and still don’t intend to help the very people whom your past actions affected and continue to affect – and don’t give me that look, you may not have shared the conviction of those around you, but you still acted on their beliefs and those actions hurt others Malfoy, they just did. It’s the main reason why we’re sitting here right now, and that doesn’t change just because you may have been a brainwashed little opportunist, not a true believer. Yet here you are, making a speech after speech about why you don’t give a toss, not even enough to be sorry!”

“How the hell would _you_ know if I’m sorry or not? Have you bothered to ask me?”

“I don’t need to ask you!”

“Of course you fucking don’t!”

“Well are you?”

_“YES!”_

“See, this is exactly what I was talking ab… wait, what?” she sputtered, eyes popped out in surprise.

“And here you go again with your damn fucking assumptions!” Draco bellowed, so beside himself he actually made a fist and punched the floor next to him unwittingly. Pain shot up his palm, making him even more furious. “What kind of an inhumane arsehole has your wee little brain turned me into if you sincerely believe I could do all the things I’ve done and not feel even a little bit sorry?” And he _was_ sorry: for Dumbledore, for Granger, for that Death Eater girl who died in excruciating agony without ever having a chance at making it; for his Muggle-born schoolmates he may not have liked but who sure as hell didn’t deserve to die for the crime of being freaks of nature; even for Potter whom his actions robbed of a friendship, the one thing Draco had always envied him whenever he looked at the fawners he’d surrounded himself with and bothered to be honest with himself for a while.

And he was also sorry for himself, but he didn’t plan on telling Granger this since knowing her, she was probably convinced the consequences to his own person were his main regret anyway.

After gaping at him for a minute, Granger found her bearing and revved up her bitch drive once more. “Well what does it matter if you’re sorry or not if the only way it manifests is in you giving us the barest minimum, and only to help yourself!”

“ _I JUST DON’T THINK THIS IS WORTH DYING FOR!_ ” Draco yelled, desperate for her to finally get it and stop pestering him. “Look, I wouldn’t be exactly giddy if the Dark Lord got his way. A lot of people would end up suffering, not just Muggle-borns, and I’m not indifferent to them either. But why the hell should _I_ be the one to lay my head on the block for them? Why does not wanting to make me a bad person if I don’t support them getting killed, either?” He felt like reaching out and shaking some sense into her. “I want me and my own to be safe most of all. Is that so bad? Is it so horrible if I don’t want to risk my life for something that doesn’t concern me?”

“Yes, if that something is other people’s very right to exist!” Granger pleaded desperately. “You aren’t living on this planet alone, Malfoy! What you do matters. What any single person in this world does _matters_. You aren’t an island in the middle of the ocean; you don’t get to live in isolation where nothing you do affects anyone else and nothing anyone else does in turn affects you! Believing otherwise doesn’t even make sense for your ‘me first and everybody else maybe’ way of thinking. If you build your life on ignoring the plight of others, in the end no one will be left to give a toss about your own problems. Even you have to realize this.”

A flicker of uncertainty must have shown on Draco’s face because all of a sudden Granger seemed disturbingly eager to go on. “People have choices, Malfoy, and whatever their backgrounds, whatever their circumstances, whatever the reasons for their actions, ultimately they have to choose to do either right or wrong, in whatever capacity they can. You do not get to go only halfway through with this while creating safeguards and plausible deniability for yourself because your Siberian vacation didn’t pan out. Because like it or not, black-and-white thinking or not, going only halfway through with this particular thing and trying to remain as uninvolved as possible will have the exact same result as if you wore that mark of yours with pride.” She raised her hand, almost as if she wanted to touch him and make her point land that much more strongly. Draco was worried it might work. “Your personal well-being, or whatever it is that drives you, doesn’t outweigh the lives and families of thousands of people all around the world!” she concluded urgently, her expression open and sincere for the first time since he’d contacted her back in September.

“Well it does for me!” Draco yelled and Granger recoiled as if he slapped her. Strangely, the look of betrayal tinged with genuine disappointment made Draco feel guilty, and that irrational guilt caused a wave of anger to swell inside him. “And if you were honest with yourself for one second you’d realize it does for you too, because all of this depends entirely on how you define ‘personal well-being’. You had as little choice in what side you’re on as I did – and before you get all huffy, no I’m not talking about the blood purity stuff.” Mirroring her previous move, he knelt and got right up her face. “Tell me Granger, how much would you value winning the war and securing a rosy future for your kind if it took sacrificing the lives of Potter and Weasley?” Her eyes went wide and Draco leaned closer. “How secure would your personal well-being, as you put it, be if you knew that the victory had been paid for by putting your precious Dunce Duo into an early grave? And let’s be frank, that’s the prospect we’re facing, especially with Potter. But they’re in the Order and so you’re in the Order – because that’s how you can best protect them. The people you love come first and everything else, including your values and rationalizations, comes second. It’s only by a stroke of luck that those two things align for you. Well congratulations, because they don’t align for me.”

Granger stared at him open-mouthed, as if he had decided to jump on a broom and go for a flight completely starkers. “That was…” she trailed off, gulping. “That was the biggest pile of self-indulgent, apologetic hogwash I think I’ve ever heard! You’re not talking about protecting the people you love, but about putting your emotional attachments above any sense of right and wrong!”

“What if sticking to what you think is right puts those you love in danger?” Draco whispered inadvertently, but Granger was fortunately too absorbed in her irritation to hear him.

Sitting back on her heels, she pinched her nose and let out a long breath. “So what, you think that if the Weasleys turned around and started to wax poetic about pureblood supremacy, I would stand by with a dumb expression on my face and sacrificed my values completely, just because we used to have nice times together?”

Draco shrugged. “You personally might not, but as a general rule yes, people do care much more strongly about those close to their heart than about some abstract idea, especially if said abstract idea is some half-baked notion they repeat mostly because it would get them booted out of the so-called polite society if they didn’t. Sort of ‘who cares if auntie is a supremacist when her pudding is so great?’”

Granger looked up sharply. “Oh, how wonderfully convenient for you, Malfoy,” she sneered. “I mean, if people genuinely gave a damn about Muggle-borns, that would rather put a damper on things for you, wouldn’t it? One might even say it would make you look a teeny-tiny bit bad. But since they don’t and anyone who says otherwise is obviously a pretentious hypocrite who’s only trying to look good, then sod it, you don’t have the duty to care either!”

He chuckled. “You know, it’s cute how you prattle on about Muggle-borns being the ultimate cause for fighting in this war, even though it does kind of spell self-interest on your part, yet whenever you think _I_ am doing things out of self-interest, you blow a gasket. And the ultimate irony is that it’s not true for either of us.” Granger opened her mouth to protest, but Draco didn’t give her the chance: “No, I don’t believe for a moment that you’ve turned yourself into a child soldier out of some firmly-held notion that you and people like you deserve a place in the wizarding society. At least it’s not the main motivation. If it was your main motivation, there’s a bazillion other ways for you to help the Order secure victory sooner and more certainly than making sure Scarhead and Weaselbee wipe their arses properly.” He raised an eyebrow. “A secret Order mission that necessitates you spending all your time around Potter and Weasley, to the point that you have nothing to do and jump at the opportunity to regularly meet up with _me_? Right.”

For a while it seemed like Granger was going to argue, but then she closed her eyes and took a deep breath, clearly willing herself to stay quiet. “Then why _do_ you bother?” she asked with an unnatural calmness.

Draco furrowed his eyebrows at the change of direction. “What do you mean?”

Granger placed her hands on her knees and leaned deliberately forward. “I’ve had it up here with you dancing circles around this,” she hissed, her façade of self-control cracking slightly. “You keep hinting at a reason that doesn’t amount to simply betting on both sides in order to ensure the best possible outcome for you, but whenever we get close to what this reason might be you swerve and steer the conversation elsewhere. So you’re going to tell me.”

 “Oh, am I?” he bristled, offended by her presumption that she could just command him to comply with her whims.

Granger nodded seriously. “Yes, Malfoy. You want to know why?” she whispered in a decisive tone that betrayed so much hidden aggression it sent shivers down Draco’s spine. “Because if I leave here without learning the full truth, I’m calling this whole spy thing off – no matter how bored you think I must be when I come to see you or how much you’re helping the Order by giving it low-level information.” Not taking her eyes off him, she shuffled closer and growled: “Because regardless of what Moody concluded about you not being a security risk, you definitely seem like one to me. So you have a choice: either spill the beans, or say goodbye to your pardon.”

Draco stared at her, his mind all of a sudden dangerously free of anything he could resort to in order to deflect her. Driven into a corner and faced with an ultimatum like this, he wasn’t sure trying to deflect would be a wise idea in the first place.

“It wouldn’t be just my pardon you’d be flushing down the crapper, Granger,” he countered, deciding that attack was the best form of defence. He could use precisely what he didn’t want to talk about as a way of getting Granger to back off. After all, there was no need to delve deeper into this than absolutely necessary, or mention emotions Draco suspected she had no interest in hearing about anyway.

She scowled. “Excuse me?”

“You might not remember since you were otherwise occupied when I told you.” He didn’t particularly like bringing up their little rendezvous in the cave since Granger refused to accept his apology and thus made it impossible for him to bitch about having been used as a target for spell practice, but considering the exact nature of the events that transpired there, it seemed reasonable to assume that she might not have been paying rapt attention when he had been talking about this. “Or maybe I haven’t told you after all since my head was rather unclear at the moment. Anyway, Moody arranged two pardons.”

“Malfoy, if you don’t start talking right now, I swear to…”

“My mother, Granger,” Draco spilled out as if he was tearing off a bloodied bandage, dried and stuck to a wound. “She’s the reason why I joined the Order and why I give you only ‘low-level information’ as you have the gall to call it from the safety of your secret mission. She’s what constitutes my well-being, the one I care about.” Once he got started, the words poured out as if they’d been eagerly waiting to be articulated from the very beginning. “As I said, having the Dark Lord win and wipe out entire swaths of the wizarding world? Wouldn’t make me jump for joy. But anything happening to my mother? I can’t even begin to imagine how I would go about handling that.” He tilted forward to deliver the final blow, so close to her they were almost bumping noses. “So if you touch her pardon I’m braiding you a noose from that shrubbery you call hair, got it?”

Taken aback, Granger pulled away. Her forehead wrinkled and her eyes got a faraway look as she thought about what he’d said. “Wait, but… This doesn’t make a lick of sense. How does joining the Order do anything but put your mother in danger if you get found out?” She refocused back on Draco, her expression open and honest. “You said she’s more important to you than whatever happens to the wizarding society. So why not just shrug off the bad stuff You-Know-Who’s going to bring, and help him build a future where your mother can be as wonderfully superior as she likes?”

It was only because Granger didn’t seem to realize the full implications of what she was suggesting that Draco kept himself from blowing up. “I _do not want_ the Dark Lord in power, Granger, and I sure as hell don’t want to be the one helping him build his sick new world,” he snarled. “Can you understand this simple fact, or is it too complicated for your little birdbrain?”

At least she had the decency to turn bright red and look ashamed. “But why don’t you disappear, then? If You-Know-Who wins, you can always come back and beg for forgiveness. That wouldn’t endanger your mother at all, especially compared to what you’re doing now. You-Know-Who would have no reason to mistreat her just because _you_ ditched.”

Laughter burst out from deep within his chest and echoed throughout the house like the rumbling of a rock avalanche. Draco couldn’t help it; it was just too absurd. “I’m afraid you’re overestimating the Dark Lord’s generosity a bit, Granger,” he managed to force out between bursts. Chuckling in genuine amusement one last time, he took a breath and laid out the bare-bones reasoning that caused him to defect all those months ago: “There are two ways this war can end, the simpler one being the Order wins. In that case, I’ll need to have a way to make certain my mother doesn’t receive the same treatment as the other Death Eaters. Her not being an active soldier would probably help, but I suspect that when it comes to forgiving enemies or not seeing them as all guilty to the exact same degree, the Order is about as magnanimous as the Dark Lord. However, since I defected and agreed to provide information, I negotiated a little package deal.”

Granger regarded him for a minute. “And if You-Know-Who wins?” she asked quietly.

“Well… what happens next will depend on whether or not I get discovered as a spy, but mainly on how quickly I can get her and myself out of the way before our so-called friends and fellow fighters inevitably turn on us.” Noticing her confused expression, Draco tilted his head and raised his eyebrows as if they were once more sitting in the Hogwarts library, debating a simple Potions problem she was hell-bent on overcomplicating. “You heard Crabbe, Granger. It’s not exactly a Malfoy fan club on the other side anymore. Once all the Muggle-borns and blood traitors are purged, it’s our heads on the chopping block.”

Draco leaned back and slapped his thighs, confident in concluding that Granger would be satisfied with his answer enough to leave him alone now. “So there you have it: I can’t run away because it would likely get mother killed. I can’t stay because then we’d be screwed no matter what. And I definitely can’t afford to give into my crushing despair and fight for the Order outright just because you value my current contributions so little. So stop suggesting that correcting my past mistakes is more important than my mother’s safety, because it's not.” He shrugged. “Pathetic as it may be, this sodding nightmare is the best I can do.”

Everything considered, he was fairly pleased with how things turned out. It was a conclusive evidence of his ability to think quickly on his feet that he was able to spin a perfectly believable narrative after having been driven into a corner, and tie all loose ends into a nice bow without telling a single lie. The trail led to a satisfying conclusion, and so there was no reason for Granger to keep playing the blood hound and try to sniff out the festering wound he’d successfully ignored over the past six months.

But Granger seemed determined to prove him wrong tonight. “What about your father?” she asked softly, the mildly spoken words snapping Draco out of his self-congratulatory reverie like a vicious slap.

His head jerked up, clearly acting out of its own will and not giving a crap that such a reaction went against Draco’s wish to bury this topic in as deep a hole as possible. “What?” he peeped, his voice breaking.

“What about your father?” Granger repeated, enunciating carefully. “Don’t think I didn’t notice he plays less than a crucial part in your plan.”

He’d honestly thought she wouldn’t notice. “Father’s as boxed in as I am,” Draco replied stiffly, deciding to once again go for the naked facts. “He thinks it’s possible to smooth things over with the Dark Lord and secure a position, and mother won’t leave without him. If she were willing to do that and either escape or join the Order with me openly, I have to tell you, that would make me sleep so much better. Not having to dodge two hostile groups at once? Phew, what a dream.” He let out a forced chuckle, but Granger didn’t respond in kind. “Father wants to save mother just as much as I do, but unlike me believes the best approach is to prove himself a true supporter. So they both stay. He doesn’t realize it’s over for us regardless if we don’t switch sides. If the Order wins, all three of us will rot in Azkaban for the rest of our lives. And no amount of boot-licking or humiliation he’s willing to take is going to change the fact that the Dark Lord is chucking us overboard sooner or later.” Fighting his constricting throat, Draco finished: “More likely than not, we’re dead meat either way.”

Granger tilted her head in a manner so compassionate it was borderline patronizing. “That’s not what I meant,” she said, her tone surprisingly gentle as if she was speaking to an injured animal. “Doesn’t your father constitute your well-being as well? Don’t you want to protect him, too?”

Her eyes were fixed on him with so much intensity it felt like finding oneself on the receiving end of her drawn wand, and as Draco scrambled for any way to escape out of the cage she’d manoeuvred him in, he realized with a shock that if he wished for Granger to be satisfied and stop interfering with his goal, there was no other option for him than to tell the complete truth, just like he’d told Moody.

Having never intended to talk about this, Draco mutely gaped at her for a while, suddenly at a loss for words his mind hadn’t ever formulated. “You know I bet that if I asked you what you think Christmas at the manor used to be like you’d come up with some ridiculous fantasy where our house elves get boiled alive in Christmas punch while we all cackle and gorge ourselves on stuffed kitten heads for dessert. The version where mother plays carols on the piano while father tries to beat me at Exploding Snap, that’d be just too incomprehensibly normal for you, wouldn’t it?”

“Malfoy…”

“The Dark Lord made him pick, Granger,” Draco blurted out, overcome with disbelief that he actually said it aloud, but once the first snippet was out there, it was impossible to stop the rest from pouring out like a raging flood. “He knew that family is what drives him the most, and so when father failed at the ministry and then _I_ failed to kill Dumbledore, the Dark Lord invited all three of us for a little chat.” Draco could still remember the sense of foreboding that gripped him while he and his parents were swiftly marched into their own drawing room right after he returned from his last year at Hogwarts, the mundane sounds of their feet shuffling and clothes rustling ricocheting off the walls as loudly as curses being blasted. “He pointed to mother and me and said that from now on, only one of us would continue to benefit from his kindness. Father was naturally out, but he did get to choose whether it would be mother or me on the front line.” Even six months later, although he had never once reflected on it, Draco could picture the exact moment as if it happened only a second ago. “He chose me, without hesitation.”

Granger’s eyes went wide and Draco shook his head violently. “And I’m not angry with him, I’m really not. If it had been I who had to pick between mother and him, I’d do the same thing. Merlin, I _am_ doing the same thing right now, just by being here with you.” The tears came unbidden then, and his vision became blurry as he struggled not to blink, to prevent them from spilling. “But it still _hurts_. Granger, it hurts so fucking much. I’m his son, for fuck’s sake, his only child, and yet when it came right down to it, when he had to decide who he could live without, it didn’t take him a minute.”

Bowing his head, Draco pinched his nose to hide how he was attempting to wipe his eyes. He was not going to cry. He hadn’t cried since the night of the Astronomy Tower, not once: not when he was first made to kill, not during the numerous sleepless nights at Hogwarts, not when his father threw him away, not even during those awful three months when he was slowly becoming convinced that his efforts to switch sides were doomed to fail and it was his fate to die fighting for the wrong side, alone, unloved, and abandoned by everyone.

Draco hadn’t cried then, and so he definitely wasn’t going to cry now.

Sniffling, he took a long breath and looked up. “You know, Granger, in a sense I think you’re right. People do have choices. My father certainly had plenty of them. He chose to follow a genocidal maniac when he didn’t have the excuse of being a kid. He chose to parrot his nonsense after the first wizarding war was over and he saw first-hand what it led to. He chose to throw away his second chance, crawl back to the Dark Lord, and deliver his family to him on a silver platter.” Draco gave a bitter laugh. “And he chose to drop me like a bag of wet farts when he came to the conclusion that between his wife and his son, I was the one expendable.”

While he was talking, Granger mutely gawped at him, as awestruck as she was when he’d given her the chocolate frog in their fifth year.

“That was the last time I saw either of them. I hear father busts his arse somewhere in the field while the Dark Lord supposedly holds mother in the manor to make both of us behave and do our best. I got to finish my seventh year at Hogwarts, but that was the extent of the Dark Lord’s kindness. It has been nothing but fighting and death and loneliness and misery since graduation. Each day has been less bearable than the last, and there’s no end in sight.” Finding solace in his previous fury, Draco called on it to give him some of his dignity back; he fixed Granger with a hateful glare and gave her the most vicious growl he could muster: “So if you think I’ve taken the easy road, especially compared to you, then you can kindly go fuck yourself.”

One of the reasons why he’d never intended to reveal any of this to her – indeed, why he’d fought so hard when Moody had discovered this chink in his armour during the vetting process – was that opening up emotionally and divulging the most painful experience of his life to Granger after what he’d done to her was actually the easier part. After all, there was bound to be a reaction; dismissal, sneering, laughter, or something else profoundly nasty, something he wouldn’t be able to handle in his vulnerable state, and particularly not from her.

But the reaction never came. Even after he finished laying out his secret for her to dissect and find some way in which the entire nightmare had been his own fault, Granger continued to stare with reddish, popped out eyes, not blinking, not moving, not breathing, not saying anything, just looking at him with a tormented expression like she was getting strangled.

Draco sighed. “You know what, forget I said anything. Moody’s obviously a no-show and I have to get back anyway, so why don’t you contact me when…”

“I obliviated my parents.”

The words came out as if she had no control over them; like they were a flood barely held by a decrepit old dam that couldn’t remain standing one second longer.

“What?” Draco whispered in surprise, unsure whether he’d misheard or not.

“I obliviated my parents,” Granger repeated in the same tortured tone as before, like a person put under the Imperius curse and ordered to speak against their will. “After the sixth year. I made them forget they had a daughter. Figured if they didn’t know there was any connection between them and me, if they thought it was about time they built a new life somewhere outside Britain, it was going to put them out of danger.”

Draco gulped heavily. “That’s…” He meant to say horrible, but Granger jumped in and interrupted him.

“Completely idiotic, yes!” she shrieked and threw her hands up. “I mean, what the hell was I thinking? Why couldn’t I just ask the Order to hide them? Do I really react so stupidly when under stress? Was I so thrown off by what was happening that I didn’t realize erasing my parents’ memories was going to achieve zilch?” She gestured wildly and gave Draco an angry glare as if he was preparing to argue with her. “They still can be found if Death Eaters put their mind to it, but now I have no way of helping them! I was so scared I sent them to Australia, not knowing exactly where because if anybody was going to torture me for information, then I couldn’t reveal much. It completely slipped my mind that Death Eaters wouldn’t be using _me_ to get to _them_ ; it would be the other way around. And we’re both aware that your ilk doesn’t pass up a chance at torturing and killing Muggles just because their victims can’t divulge anything of value.” As Granger jerked her hand and wiped at her red blotchy face, Draco saw she was full-on crying. “If I get up and go look for my parents now, it would just draw attention. And I didn’t give them any means to call for help if they need it, that’s how paranoid I was about providing them with anything magical that could get them identified. For all I know, they may already be dead, killed by You-Know-Who or a damn taipan. And even if the Order wins, they’re not going to… they’ll never…”

The end of the sentence drowned in an outpour of violent sobbing, but there was no need for her to finish; Draco knew exactly what she was going to say.

_Even if the Order wins, they’ll never remember me anyway._

Granger squeezed her hands into fists so hard her knuckles turned white, and wept brokenly. “And Ron doesn’t know, or Harry… I mean… how could I tell Harry, how could I even want him to feel sorry for me, knowing what I’ve done to him? How could I continue to hide the truth, but still have the audacity to go and cry on his shoulder?”

Bringing herself to breathe in and regain some semblance of self-control, she raised her head and gave Draco, who was completely transfixed by the sudden turn of events, a defiant look. “Do you want to know what Christmas at _my_ house used to be like?” she challenged. “It was so Muggle you would vomit. Nativity play, midnight mass, and every festive meal you could name. I even had to go on writing to Santa. Can you imagine?” She laughed wetly. “Mum and dad were pretty adamant about me not forgetting where I come from, and so they would always see to it that we’d make the most of the few times we saw one another each year.” Her eyes shone as she immersed herself in the memory. “If the war hadn’t broken out, I would have been at home with them right now, helping to decorate the Christmas tree. We’d always done that together. My parents never saw me perform magic, so it would have been a great opportunity to show off some of the things I can do, eh?”

Granger’s lower lip trembled and the light in her eyes instantly died, like a flame of an extinguished candle. “And instead I’ll never see them again and Ron has left and I’m cold and hungry and stuck here in this _fucking_ house, with you of all people and…”

Draco couldn’t say what possessed him to do it. Maybe it was the exhaustion of involuntary sharing; maybe it was seeing another human being suffer from pain as great and brought about by the same thing as his own. Or maybe it was the fact that for the first time in his life he heard Granger actually swear. All he knew was that one moment she was a foot away from him, bawling like a picture of misery, and a second later he was grabbing the lapel of her thick coat, pulling her in for a hug and burying his face in her shoulder, the huge mass of hair and red wool tickling him in the nose.

He could feel Granger tug feebly at the fabric of his winter coat, trying to either shove him away or make him look at her, but since he didn’t intend to do either, she soon gave up and wrapped her arms around him, the sound of her sobbing loud in his ears. Draco wasn’t going to glance up and let her see there were tears in his eyes as well, but unlike him Granger clearly stopped giving a damn about appearing vulnerable because before he knew it, she spoke up in a broken voice laden with agony:

“I can’t hate you anymore… it’s just so… petty and inconsequential.”

His throat constricted, making it impossible to speak with any dignity whatsoever, and so he just weakly nodded into her shoulder.

Draco had no idea how much time they spent kneeling there, clinging to each other like to a lifeline. The embrace was warm and awkward and uncomfortable and wet and extremely embarrassing but they couldn’t see each other’s faces which made it a little bit more bearable when he later thought about it. After a while, the storm outside quieted, Granger stopped crying, and dead silence settled in the house, making it easy for Draco to close his eyes and pretend they didn’t have to get up and leave soon.

He almost dozed off when he suddenly felt Granger’s lips move close to his ear and whisper: “I’m sure your father loves you as much as ever.”

Burying his face in the crook of her neck to stifle the despondent whimper that was trying to escape from his mouth, Draco forced out a mumble: “I read somewhere that undoing memory charms is a rapidly developing field at Mungo’s.”

The tightening of her arms was the only confirmation that she heard him, and in response Draco decided that cover or no cover, another minute or two spent hugging his childhood nemesis goodbye wasn’t going to hurt. After all, they were just two wide-eyed teenagers caught in the middle of a war neither of them wanted, unable to tell at any single moment whether they were going to see the light of the next day. But if there was one thing Draco knew with absolute certainty, it was that if he got killed the moment he stepped out into the snow, at the very least Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy had been finally introduced.

When it came to Christmas presents, it was nothing to scoff at.


End file.
